Milton.

...time may come when men
With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare:
And from these corporeal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit...
(5.494-97)

After about three months of no concentrated Milton, I decided that today was the day that 'work' (an English Literature degree is never really 'work' is it - and anyone who says it is, is taking themselves too seriously) was going to happen. Thankfully, it did. Up at 8, and to work at 10, my productivity only impeded by a man doing horrible phlegmy coughs on the other side of the room, and a (most likely homeless) man asleep, mouth wide open, snoring. Luckily someone must have complained, because a young lady quickly came to wake him up, and whispered a few cautionary words to him. It was only then that he produced a blue polyethalene bag, and began to eat spring onions out of it. Bizarre.

Anyway, that's all beside the point really. It seems slightly ridiculous to be writing to the world (wide web) about my fairly mundane trip to the library. Maybe I'm writing this because I'm somehow proud of myself, in a more than pathetic way, for having actually done something, other than reading for pleasure, or breaking out of my usual trend of getting to the library in order to boycott work in favour of reading other books. It comes as a relief to me that I finally seem to have an idea. It was only last night that I was moaning to a friend about my 'hopeless' situation. But I think I have something. The quality of which is debatable, but it is an idea, it can be worked on. Obviously I don't want to broadcast my whole idea on the internet, but it centers around the digestive processes (both mental and alimental) which operate within Paradise Lost, on various levels. Hence the quote above. My notes are littered with these little diagrams of stomachs and cosms with annotations within them. I wish I could take a picture of them, they look pretty cool. (If I do say so myself). It's also pretty entertaining to be reading about such childishly funny things like poo and farting. And Milton's own view on these things, as poo and farting are topics which (believe it or not) are worryingly common in his collected works. It is most explicitly mentioned in De Doctrina Christiana, but you can also find references to both of these things in Areopagitica, Lycidas, and of course in Paradise Lost.

I decided a few weeks ago to do a Milton tour around London (NERDY I KNOW) and visited the site of his old house in Bread Street, now the site of imposing glass office blocks, St. Paul's where he was taught and bought his books, and also Whitehall where he worked for many years of his life. I wish I could say that seeing the places that constituted Milton's world were in some way remarkably inspiring, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Although after re-reading parts of the poem today I think I have re-entered a 'love' phase, which is good for work. I just hope that the 'hate' phase doesn't swing around too soon behind it. The more I read of it, the more I feel that it is most definitely a poem to be tackled in small sections. Really small sections. Ideally probably no more than 50 lines in an evening. But obviously at this stage time won't allow for that. I wonder if there's some kind of 'Read Paradise Lost in a year' scheme, like they do with the bible. That'd be good. I always worry that I'm going to ruin my enjoyment by having to read big sections in short periods of time.

Nothing else to report.
Hopefully I can get something on paper soon.

To quote Satan himself:

"...Nor think thou with wind
Or airy threats to awe whom yet with deeds
Thou canst not..."
(6.282-84)

Seems pretty relevant in considering what I've just done - talking rubbish about my essay for which I have very little to show.

This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it.

My new friend. His name? Cormac McCarthy. I am addicted.

I've only read The Road and No Country For Old Men, but they we're both really very good. Gonna be searching for cheap editions of his novels in the next few weeks. Maybe I'll pick up a new one tomorrow - perhaps Blood Meridian or All The Pretty Horses. His novels are so readable and page-turnery but also good, not shit, no no, good. Really gripping, with punchy speech, and highly plot driven, but also very American. I ended up making pages of quotes and notes on The Road. It is so deliciously dark. Maybe I will bombard you with some of the quotes here, you unsuspecting little things. Hehehe. Okay, here are my favourites. I'll only put two in. Just want to share the love. (I would try and persuade everyone around to how great NCFOM was as well by doing this if it wasn't completely and utterly unquotable- n.b. the title of this post is actually a quote from the book. Maybe I exaggerated the truth a little there. There is one quote of worth. Enjoy it.)

This first quote is the first three sentences of the novel
"When we woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world."

Numero Duo!
He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."

Maybe I’ll write a review of it soon, and then put a shiny hyperlink right here (____here it is____) when it’s done so people can click away. I think I will. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Feel like I haven't posted on here in a long time. Can't say there's any reason for that. Apathy perhaps? Or maybe I've realised I simply have. nothing. to. say. I don't think it's that though. I think in reality I've been too absorbed in reading things to give a second thought to this blog, or its function of keeping me sane over the holidays. I think all the reading has done me good though. It's made me feel relaxed. Maybe too relaxed. In fact I don't think I've read this many books in such a short period of time since my imprisoning holiday in France two years ago, where the only alternative to complete and utter boredom was complete and utter escapism.

In the last week I've read The Road, and No Country For Old Men. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers - a non-fiction book about one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina told in the style of a novel. It was kinda strange reading non-fiction events in that style. But it worked well. I also read All My Friends are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman. I think I spoke about it in my last post. It was complete and utter rubbish. Enjoyable enough to get to the end of, but still undeniably rubbish. Too cutesy. I'm currently three chapters away from finishing Watchmen by Alan Moore. Though I have to admit that my interest is waning. Surely it should be peaking about now? Oh well. As one of Time's best 100 novels I thought I'd better check it out. But it's been disappointing so far. I guess I've not finished it yet though, perhaps I shouldn’t judge. Trying to make myself believe that slowness of plot = deeper character development which will then make the climax even more valuable. Ready to read next I have Bret Easton Ellis' new novel Imperial Bedrooms, let's hope it isn't as awful as his last novel Lunar Park. I threw my copy away it was that bad. Blegh. Part of me is beginning to believe that he is past it now. The novel is supposedly a sequel to his first novel Less Than Zero, I just think that by writing this sequel he might end up shitting all over the success that was Less Than Zero, or inviting a negative comparison between the now aging Bret and the early, creative, teenage Bret.

No other news to report. Until I have to resurface, complete escapism will be the order of the day...


Along with pushing John Milton and that fucking shitting ridiculously painful neverending poem, Paradise Lost to the back of my mind for as long as is humanly and hopefully sensibly possible.

I do solemnly swear

... that I will go to the library tomorrow and think for an hour or two about this essay.

(Only then will I continue to trick myself into believing that reading any books published in the 21st century and written by American authors constitutes 'work')

Just finished Netherland by Joseph O' Neill. I'll post a review as soon as I've given it some thought. Until tomorrow's designated library time I might as well start on the next novel - All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman.

Oh, and, I started using goodreads again. Check it out - www.goodreads.com/garethaleddavies

Job 15:2

Research for my Milton essay seems to be leading on a bizarre trail through the nether areas of the bible, including Job, and the deleted book: The Apocrypha.

Seems like the research for this essay isn't actually as boring as I thought it would be. I even managed to find some pretty cool quotes:

'Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his body with the east wind?'

Snails

Ah, The Format, why did you have to split up?



I am lucky that there is so much good music in my life right now.
Proof ----> click me

To those who have questioned my tendency to sporadically delete facebook

"We have become alienated from those aspects of life we might consider authentic or real. While our working lives are still ‘real’ (we go to work and pay the bills) they are not as real as, say, farming or building a ship. Instead we spend most of our time at our desks in front of a computer screen, engaging with symbolic representations rather than real, tangible objects. Much of our leisure time is spent engaging in simulated experiences or consuming more information. Existence has become more ‘virtual’ than real" - Brian Nicols

It just gets too much sometimes y'know . . . I feel like a technology slave. In fact the whole idea of facebook is weird anyway. I might as well start listing my problems with it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks these things. Here we go...

--1) (Excuse my pretentious use of Baudrillard(ian?) terms). The fact that hyper-real internet profiley 'me' becomes more legitimate to some people than 'real' real me.

--2) Facebook is too 1984 - let's face it.

--3) (Excuse ridiculous paranoia) Everything I say on facebook is probably recorded somewhere.

--4) Facebook is a bunch of bored people tricking themselves that everyone else isn't bored, and somehow entertaining themselves by watching the actions of many other bored people (How does that make logical sense?)

--5) I become depressed when I realise that I have a better relationship with certain people under hyper-real facebook identity than I do with them in real life, on a face-to-face basis.

--6) It is not good for my brain to be bombarded with pointless information about the (usually insignificant) minutae of the lives of a group of people. (those I do care about I see in real life) ((Those I don't particularly care about ... I don't particularly care about))

--7) Although I hate the thing it manages to suck me back in over the holiday breaks. Yes, this only deepens my loathing for it. And makes me feel like a weak smack-addicted cretin.

--8) The wall feature conditions everyone to masquerade and put on a show for others. It encourages people to present themselves not as who they are, but who they want to be or what they want to be. Basically people trick each other into what they are really like (see concern 1 in my list).

--9) The wall feature is (excuse more pretentious terms) panoptic (in the Foucauldian sense). Everyone is watching everyone else. Every stays in check, they are conscious of being judged by others (also links to point 8 and 1).

--10) Think of all of the things you could have achieved if you hadn't spent however much time on facebook in your life so far? Doesn't it give you a stomach lurch?

Obviously it's a useful tool for keeping in touch with people who perhaps live in other places or are old friends who have moved on. But for me the cons outweigh the pros. Even if not having facebook does result in me missing out on invites to certain events (probably the one main con of deleting it). Oh yeah, and there's something really dodgy in that facebook won't actually let you delete your account - it can only be 'deactivated'. Somehow once you've joined there is no escape . . . a bit cult-ish really.

Anyway, that's for all the people who have asked me why I keep deleting facebook, and asking me when I'm 'coming back' (sounds weird, as if facebook is a geographical place) on occassion. Unfortunately I am too weak to keep it deleted all the time (I am only a puny mortal). As soon as I get back to Cardiff I feel its horrible itch coming back to me. I guess that's the result of too much time in the house. Oh well. I think I'll delete again next week perhaps... My productivity multiplies exponentially when it's deleted. Even just reading a book or daydreaming is more productive to me than watching a stream of information from a group of people (the majority of whom I don't have a regular functioning close human friendship with). P.s. I'm sure that this -----> Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook will be interesting to many of you as well. (Though I'm not sure how legit it is).

(It's kind of painful that I'm making these statements writing on an internet blog, which will then be published on facebook...irony sucks. P.S. sorry for any pretentiousness in this blog post.)

NY II

8 hours to go now, feeling a bit more excited . . .

Astronomy

Listening to a lot of new hip hop the last few weeks - Blackstar, Braintax and Army of the Pharaohs. All good stuff.

This week . . .

. . . has been very good indeed.
That is all.

The Magnificent Birth of Future Gareth.

What if you could completely abstract your future self?

As always, when travelling back to a city you haven’t been to a while, new slang emerges, you are confronted with new words and phrases which seem alien. I noticed, on returning to Cardiff in March, that a number of my friends had begun referring to their future selves . . . not really as a form of slang (though this is how I interpreted it at first), but . . . tactically . I heard my friends come out with things like “Oh I’ll just skip work and let future Chris deal with that”, or “I have to go to a funeral tomorrow, but I’ll get drunk anyway, future Matt can sort it out”. This wasn’t just one or two people, but a whole sub-group of friends. At first this seemed strange to me, not to mention irresponsible and maybe even stupid – but the more I got to thinking about it, the more it began to make sense.

I will openly admit that I am awful at forgetting about responsibilities, and having fun. When I know that there is a deadline, or something has to be done, I usually turn down any propositions in favour of tackling the task at hand. Even if I do manage to talk myself into going out, the worry of what needs to be done usually lingers in my mind, tainting my enjoyment of the night. I am one of those people who (I believe like many others), is always looking to the future, basing decisions, such as, whether to go out for the evening, upon whether I will have time to complete particular tasks, or have the ability to fulfil certain responsibilities, if I do go out. I believe this to be a kind of thought process which a lot of people go through.

What I eventually came to realise, is that future Gareth can be a liberating force in these situations. When I think back over the last two or three years – the number of opportunities I have turned down, due to either time restrictions, responsibility, or even lack of money, worries me. If I had disregarded these trivial stock responses such as “sorry I can’t do that, I don’t have enough money”, “I can’t go out, I have to finish reading such and such by tomorrow”, or anything in a similar vein, I believe I would be a much more rounded, richer, and confident personality. The weird thing about ‘Future Gareth’ is that he can only exist if I, or you, or anyone, is willing to completely disconnect the present from the future; to create a mental divider between the two.

I began to realise, that the future Gareth, wasn’t just a run of the mill saying, but, in fact, a complex mental construct... a mental failsafe. In order for this to work, you have to make your future self a complete abstraction of your present self. You might be sceptical or cynical, and pass this off as some kind of pseudo-intellectual way of explaining the idea of burying your head in the sand (you’d be completely excused) – but I’m convinced that this idea is far more psychologically advanced, and indeed, completely different, to just resigning an obligation or responsibility to the back of your mind. The future self, in adopting this process, forces a person into entertaining what is a temporary, mentally existent second self – a twin, a double who is uncanny, one who must become something other than the self – but must by necessity still be the self. Essentially, an alter-ego must be created. An alter-ego who can carry the consequences of irresponsibility, and who the present self can lump guilt upon.

I guess I should admit, that in recent weeks I have begun to use future Gareth as an excuse TO do things, as opposed to conforming to the routine of letting present Gareth reason his way OUT of doing things. I’m not sure that future Gareth is a healthy aspect of my life, for there are certainly echoes of split personality disorder in his creation and successive re-creations. I’m also not sure if he is a sensible one, but, despite these queries, he is a valuable liberating force. I invite you, like me, to let go of your present self once in a while, and let your abstracted doppelganger take the burden – believe me, it feels good, (until you become that guilt ridden twin, and must build another). But really, aside from all that, if I learnt anything whilst at home in Cardiff, it was to use future Gareth once in a while, and to just let go now and then. Life is much more fun that way.
____________________________________________________________________
THIS IS NOT AN EXIT

Quiet Please - No Mobile Phones

Sitting in Derwent computer room, no natural light, two other ill looking men, and the mechanical chatter of keyboards. My essay grinds to a halt . . . seven hundred words in and . . . nothing. On the plus side, this summer is shaping up to be a good one. I have (about . . . well, you could say exactly 3 minutes ago) sent off my application to the Study China Programme. A course which consists of three weeks of intensive Mandarin lessons in Shanghai over summer. Everything is paid for, except for the flights. If all goes well I will be travelling to three continents this year. Pretty impressive, seeing as I've only been to two in my whole life. Those being Europe (pretty inescapable really), and North America - having travelled through Canada two years ago. Hopefully I can save up enough money to afford it all.

In other news I have my final (possibly ever) shift at blockbuster tomorrow, which will no doubt consist of an eight hour shift boxing various things up, and packing things away. Although I moan about it, I will miss that place. A customer even wrote me a letter yesterday. Here it is :

To whom it may concern,

Please note, I would like to express my utmost disappointment at the closure of this store. Gareth has always been so friendly, it's a shame.

Sonia 17/04/10

Fairly harmless and to the point, but charming and sweet nonetheless. It is nice to know you'll be missed. Anyway, I must leave now. This room is too claustrophobic, especially on a sunday. Farewell for now
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THIS IS NOT AN EXIT